Revisiting horrors of 2017 in hopes of ending them

The display of a rainbow flag at a September concert in Cairo triggered a new round of anti-LGBT arrests in Egypt’s ongoing crackdown on LGBT people and many others who are targets of the Abdel Fattah el-Sisi regime. (Photo courtesy of Rainbow Egypt via Facebook)

Although many parts of the world made progress toward recognition of LGBT rights during 2017, it was also a year filled with senseless, brutal anti-LGBT crackdowns. Among the worst were those in Egypt, Chechnya, Indonesia, Nigeria and Tanzania. Reviewing the horrors of 2017 is painful but important. Many such human rights abuses are likely to continue into 2018 unless international outrage forces homophobic countries to stop:

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is a favorite of U.S. President Donald Trump despite ongoing repression of Sisi’s political opponents, journalists and LGBT people. The anti-gay crackdown accelerated in September after a rainbow flag was hoisted at a rock concert in Cairo. The arrests were a continuation of the repression that started in late 2013, primarily targeting human rights defenders and Sisi’s political opponents. During that period, at least 274 LGBTQ people in Egypt were targets of police action, prosecution and hate crimes, according to a tally last year from the advocacy group Solidarity with Egypt LGBTQ+. After the concert, Egyptian police arrested from 30 to 57 people on charges of debauchery and inciting sexual deviancy.

Egypt’s parliament is considering a bill nicknamed the Wipe-Out-the-Queers Bill. It calls for imprisonment of up to three years for people who:

“Advertise or publicize any homosexual gathering”;

Manufacture, sell, market, advertise or carry “any symbol or code for homosexuals”; or

“Instigate” or “prepare a place” where same-sex relations occur.

Egyptian activists: Anti-LGBT repression is getting worse A report by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights stated that police specifically targeted persons whose sexual orientation or gender identity does not conform to socially sanctioned norms. The three and a half-year period ending in March 2017 saw a total of 232 such arrests, or about 66 each year, compared to an average of 14 people a year in the period from 2000 to 2013.

Police raided a private gathering of gay and bisexual men in the city of Surabaya, arrested and detained 14, and subjected them to HIV tests without their consent.

Police raided the Atlantis Spa in Jakarta, arrested 141, and charged 10 for holding an alleged sex party. Officers allegedly paraded the suspects naked in front of media and interrogated them still unclothed.

The West Java police chief announced plans to create a special police unit to detect and punish LGBT people.

‘Now Indonesia Wants to Hide Its Floggings’ Confronted with international outrage over the public flogging of gay men, the Indonesian province of Aceh didn’t abandon that brutal practice. Instead, it has moved them out of the public eye.

Against that background of ongoing repression, three large-scale incidents stood out:

53 arrests in Nigeria for alleged same-sex wedding. Prosecutors in Muslim northern Nigeria charged 53 people with attending a supposed gay wedding. The arrestees pleaded not guilty to the charge, saying that they were at a birthday party, not a gay wedding. As is often the case in Nigeria, the outcome of this case was not reported.

Bangladeshi repression leaves LGBT community reeling. Increasing desperation in the Bangladeshi LGBT community came to a head Friday, May 19, when police in Bangladesh broke up a social gathering, making 29 arrests in what seems to be part of a government crackdown against the LGBT community. Initially, police said the arrests were for homosexuality, but they soon realized that they had no evidence of same-sex sexual activity, so they pressed drug charges instead.

Hundreds of LGBT Ugandas fled from their violently homophobic homeland to neighboring Kenya, only to end up stuck in violently homophobic urban slums or in the Kakuma refugee camp, surrounded by tens of thousands of homophobic refugees from elsewhere in East Africa.

Some relief efforts are under way: Kakuma refugees gain supporters, need more help. LGBTI Ugandans at Kakuma Camp in Kenya found some reasons to celebrate, despite the refugee camp’s food cutbacks and continuing hostility from other refugees. As of late December, an online funding campaign had raised $2,673 for supplementary food for about 200 LGBTI refugees there. That campaign is ongoing.

UGANDA: Police shut down Pride Uganda and film festival

imon Lokodo, Ugandan ethics minister, describes his treatment of LGBTI people during a PBS NewsHour interview.

The now-overturned Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014 and its never-enacted harsher predecessor, the “Kill the Gays” Bill, helped earn Uganda a reputation as one of the world’s worst countries for LGBT people. Many Ugandan LGBT rights activists are hard at work trying to reduce repression, but there’s must work still to do. As this year’s prime example: Under threat, activists cancel Pride Uganda 2017. LGBTI rights activists cancelled Uganda Pride 2017 in August in the face of threats of arrest and physical harm.